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AN 



O H A T 1 O N 



DELIVERED IN CHESTER, VT., 



JULY 4, 1857, 



BY WM. S. BALCH. 



NEW- YORK : 
A. TAYLOR & SON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 

NO. 40 SIXTH AVENUE. 

18 57. 



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-4' 



DANGERS OF OUR REPUBLIC: 



AN 



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ORATION 



DELIVERED IN CHESTER, VT., 



JULY 4, 1857, 



BY WM. S. BALCH. 



NEW-YORK : 
A. TAYLOR & SON, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, 

NO. 40 SIXTH AVENUE. 

1857. 






j l.'^S'J 

At a celebration liolden at Chester, Vt., on the 4th of July, 1857, 
the following resolution, presented by Gov. Fletcher, was unani- 
mously adopted : 

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the Presi- 
dent of the day, to present to the Ret. William S. Balch, the 
thanks of the audience for his appropriate and able address, and 
to request a copy of the same for publication. 

The Chairman appointed on the Committee, His Excellency, 
Ryland Fletcher, the Hon. Thomas F. Barrett, and the Hon. Abner 
Field. 

Eev. "William S. Balch, 

Dear Sir : It becomes the agreeable duty of the Com- 
mittee to communicate to you the above resolution, and to ask your 
compliance with the request which it contains. The undersigned 
most cordially unite in the desire expressed by your large and intelli- 
gent audience, to publish your address, from the conviction that its 
practical, patriotic, and just sentiments are worthy of a wide diffu- 
sion. 

Ryland Fletcher, 
Thomas F. Barrett, 
Abner Field. 

New-York, July 13, 1857. 
Gentlemen : I consent to your request, more from respect for 
my friends than from a conviction of any merits in the address 
itself. If its publication shall do any good, I shall be glad. 

Truly and Fraternally, 

Wm. S. Balch. 

His "Excellency, Gov. Fletcher, and others. 



I AM happy to meet you, my Friends and Fellow-citizens, 
on such a day as this; to join you in the commemoration 
of a day and an event which have become justly famous 
throughout the civilized world. I am happy to be here 
among my native hills, to hear the glad peal of joyful wel- 
come to our nation's holiday ringing along these valleys, 
reverberating among these mountains, and, spreading as 
it goes, re-awakening a more lively consciousness of duty 
to defend what our fathers won and entrusted to our keep- 
ing. I am happy to be in the midst of a free and intelli- 
gent congregation, who hear with favor the defences of 
human rights and personal liberty, and do not shrink from 
the utterance of truth in an hour of danger. I am happy 
to be here, away from the noisome pestilence of pride, 
luxury, and liberty without law — here, where intelligence 
and honesty are more cultivated, and better appreciated, 
in the management of personal, domestic, and public af- 
fairs. I am happy to be here for my own sake — far away 
from the bluster and bustle, from the noise and crime, 
the misery and corruption, and shameless degradation, 
which almost necessarily generates in the crowded marts 
and ambitious commerce of the world — to breathe again 
the pure, bracing atmosphere which first inflated my infant 
lungs, and to speak out upon the passing breeze the wit- 
ness of maturer years to the excellency of the principles 
and habits here taught me. These rural scenes, so grand 
and glorious in their soft and silent beauty, are all familiar 
to my eyes and heart. Every mountain, hill, and vale ; 
every brook, and glen, and wood, and field, and lawn ; 
every house, and barn, and shed unchanged, and rock of 



strange formation, are all impressed upon my mind in 
lines inerasable. I could go to that old school-house, and 
mark the benches where I sat and conned the lessons of 
Webster's Spelling-Book ; to that old church, and tell the 
banisters I turned round and round a thousand times 
during a sermon I did not understand ; to that room in 
the north-east corner, second story, of that old academy, 
where, with a chum — now gone to his home in the better 
world — I puzzled my head with the " 6, ?/, ro ;" bonus-a-um 
of languages which told me of the rise, and riches, and 
glory of Greek and Roman Republics, and of their de- 
cline and fall ; and to the school-room, where we recited 
to one whose face I last saw, a few years ago, all pale and 
cold, just before they laid it down there in that silent 
tomb. 

Ah ! me, what changes have been wrought ! I wondered 
then about mysteries and marvels long since revealed. 
I looked forward to things now far behind me. Time 
goes tramping on, seemingly more fleet than ever, bearing 
us — who shall tell us where "? 

I have looked upon these scenes and compared them 
with others far distant and far different. I have seen them 
from the high Alps, whose snowy brow is dazzled with 
the radiance of summer suns, and stars which twinkle in 
Italian skies ; from the summits of Mt. Lebanon, with 
the relics of its famous cedars far below me on one hand, 
and the immense ruins of Baalbec on the other ; from the 
boundless wastes of Arabian deserts ; from the palm 
groves, royal tombs, ruined temples, and everlasting pyra- 
mids on the banks of the Nile ; from cathedral piles 
and monkish cloisters ; from Roman forum and Athenian 
Pnyx and Agora; from European and Asiatic battle- 
fields ; from living thrones, cynic cells, and from among 
toiling, struggling, suffering masses of oppressed millions : 
and from every point their rises up for me a cloud by day 
and a pillar of fire by night, from this hallowed spot, 
more excellent in fact, and more sublime in suggestion. 



than all I see and learn engraven along the lapse of the 



It is here I learned the simple rudiments of a science 
which is true in all time, and practical in all nations ; which 
concerns alike the well-being of the individual, the com- 
munity, the nation, and the world — 1 mean the knowledge 
of moral action, private and public, social, religious, and 
political. I have never seen cause to depart from the 
lessons of simple honesty and frankness, and unwavering 
integrity of thought and action, under any circumstances 
of life through which I have passed. I have ever looked 
with abhorrence upon the suggestions of policy which con- 
travene the exercise o? principles drawn from the sublime 
truths of Christianity. My personal observations accord 
with the testimony of every man's experience, with the 
lessons of all history, in teaching the truth of the old 
maxim of our copy-books that, in every thing, " Honesty 
is the best policy." 

Pardon me, my friends, this piece of egotism. It was 
forced upon me by the place and the occasion ; it shall 
suggest the theme of my remarks. 

You have called me here to-day — for what ? To recite 
to you the noble deeds of our patriot sires'? We of 
mid-life have heard them from the lips of those grand 
old sires a thousand times, and would be glad to hear 
them a thousand more. Alas ! their voices are hushed into 
the stillness of death ; they speak only in the memories 
of the past, and tell of their works and sufferings. And 
we have repeated them in the nursery tales and school- 
books prepared for our children. Have you called me 
here to turn you backward ; to amuse you like some 
Turkish Medak with a charming recitation, half real, half 
f.ction, made up of euphonious words and well formed 
sentences 1 I can not gratify you if you have ; I would 
not if I could. This day should be consecrate to purer 
thoughts and nobler resolutions. I know that some peo- 
ple think a Fourth-July oration should be made up of the 



6 

drift of fine phrases, polished paragraphs, and soft mean- 
ingless words ; that the orator is a mere rhetorician, who 
seeks to display, in studied accents, his charming power 
of speech, or thundering eloquence. If any such are come 
here to day, I shall be glad to hear of their disappoint- 
ment. 

But for what have you called me here 1 Is it not to 
represent before you the privileges and duties of Amer- 
ican citizens ? Is it not to remind you of the great res- 
ponsibility of the present and coming generation ; to 
apply and carry out, to make practical and permanent, 
the great principles declared paramount and fundamental 
by the great sages of our Republic, on the Fourth of 
July, 1776'? Am I not here to rebuke the errors, per- 
versions, and wide departures, if any there be, from the 
strict construction and plain intent of that sacred instru- 
ment whose simplicity, conciseness, and deep significance 
have made it the wonder of the world, not less as a polit- 
ical document, enunciating grand and self-evident truths, 
which concern the rights and happiness of all men, than 
as a specimen of pure and beautiful composition '? Am 
I not here to speak with perfect freedom ; and, while 
standing upon the simple and eternal truths of the Declara- 
tion, and looking up to the Fountain of all knowledge, and 
right, and justice, to point you forward, and encourage 
you to pursue the career which shall carry out the grand 
designs of the wise founders of our Republican Institu- 
tions 1 

1 am not here as a partisan of any name. I am glad 
all party-lines are well-nigh frittered away ; that party- 
names are no longer synonyms of any set of political 
principles. As in religion, sectarian walls are crumbling 
away, and honest and good men, and humble Christians, 
are coming to be esteemed more than surly bigots, rant- 
ing enthusiasts, and gnarled controvertionalists ; so in 
party politics, the Procrustean beds and party -machinery 
are rusting all away, or being hammered into forms of 



greater usefulness. Those who are wedded to party-names 
and organizations, do it at the great hazard of the princi- 
ples once professed. Though denouncing for themselves 
all change, and to others all right to think, speak and act 
contrary to the dictates of their leaders and their plat- 
forms, they not unfrequently wheel round and change 
fronts completely, even upon leading questions; for ex- 
ample, the Dorr rebellion, and Topeka Constitution. Acote 
hill and Border-ruffianism look very differently when seen 
from party stand-points. The bitterest old Federalists 
were, in other days, made over like many of the purest 
Whigs in our time, into the soundest Democrats, dyed 
in the web, but not in the wool. 

I do not object to changes ; far from it, so be they are 
honestly made, and for the better. I believe in the possi- 
bility of conversion, even of politicians, for we have seen 
it. I do not believe in their actual total depravity ; though 
one familiar with some of their wretched manoeuvrings 
would be very likely to infer it. When once set at lib- 
erty from the phariseeism of their ambitious leaders, or 
rejected by their own fraternity, they not unfrequently 
become honest men ; though even death-bed confessions, 
made under the gibbet, are not always to be relied on. 

Men are sometimes changed so imperceptibly that they 
do not know it themselves. New and often better princi- 
ples are scattered, and grow up like forest trees in a field 
of weeds, and overtop all the rest. As the great heart of 
the public beats out its sentiments through the circulation 
of popular and prevailing opinions, party hacks seize upon 
and incorporate them as new planks in their platforms to 
ensure the safety of their craft, or at least to keep them 
afloat awhile longer. They scratch the party mark upon 
them, as lumbermen do on mill-logs, so that they can 
claim them as their own, if thought best, when swept 
away on the freshet of a political excitement. See how 
partisans have, at different times, used Temperance, Anti- 
masonry, Native Americanism, Slavery, Abolitionism, as 
so many cities of refuge to which they may flee from 



their infidelity, or ill-success with the party to which they 
have been attached, hoping to outride the storm upon a 
new hobby and career down the high road to immediate 
and triumphant success, 

I do not like this eternal restlessness of some politicians, 
no more than the downright fogyism of others. But in 
this age of accelerated movement, how can it be other- 
wise? When correct principles are accepted, it can not 
be regretted. And truth sometimes blazes out with ex- 
ceeding brightness. It was an angel which troubled the 
waters, and gave them healing properties. If the people 
will only be honest, and take the trouble to inform them- 
selves, the masses will rarely go wrong. Of this the 
whole world has had proof, when great questions have 
come up for adjudication before the grand jury of all the 
people. Such a proof I was glad to see in the almost 
united action of the intelligent freemen of this my native 
State. Not only in the prompt decision of the ballot- 
box, but in the straightforward course of a Congregational 
convention in reference to the coquetting flmikeyism of 
the Old School Presbyterians. It does one's heart good to 
read political and religious honesty in the faces and 
actions of his fellow men. 

I would not seek a standard in the past., , The perfect 
is not there. We follow back the tracks of old Time, ^ 
as he has come along down the ages. His footsteps are 
marked by blood and change. And we hear the clatter- 
ing tramp as he passes on his future course to further 
triumphs, with a speed seeming every day more rapid 
than the last. Witness the changes within the memory 
of all of us. He goes to market no more in truck wagon, 
nor visits by stage-coach, or on runners in winter. He 
has harnessed his car to the power of steam, and even 
then, his material interest, goes lumbering on at a snail's 
pace compared with his mzW, which, mounted up there- 
on a single wire, flies fleeter than the steeds which drag 
Aurora's car along the railway of the morning. 



N 



Who will stop at the example of the past '^ The Christ 
we seek said, " I go before you ;" and the abiding exhorta- 
tion is : " Press forioard to the mark of the high prize of 
the calling!" 

The principles we adopt are old as the government of 
God : for truth is eternal. Their application is for us in 
the present time, for "now is the day of salvation." 
Their complete development, in all the splendor of their 
perfect power, is for the future, a subject for hope, prayer, 
and labor. It is no new thing v/e seek, but an old com- 
mandment we had from the beginning. Religiously, it 
is that " we have all one Father," and all we are brethren ; 
that we should, therefore, obey God and love one another. 
Politically, it is that " all men are created equal ; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." These two are perfectly harmonious, both in 
theory and in practice, and they concern the interest and 
honor, the welfare and happiness of all men. They may 
be obnoxious to politicians and to bigots. Sectarians 
may call one heresy, and party politicians the other. 

To maintain these principles, and a course of conduct 
corresponding with them, is the positive and bounden 
duty of every citizen of this Republic, native or adopted. 
It is alike the duty of the man and the Christian ; of the 
legislator and the judge ; of the civilian and the ecclesi- 
astic. Parents should teach these truths to their children, 
and enforce them by their own examples. Neighbor 
should tell of them to his neighbor, and try to make them 
practical throughout the neighborhood. They should be 
boldly preached from the pulpit, and stoutly defended in 
legislative halls, despite starvation salaries, and gutta- 
percha canes. 

A great statesman said, with emphasis, " Eternal vigi- 
lance is the price of liberty." It was while the watchmen 
slept that the enemy sowed the tares. Inattention to the 
institutions of our government and to the corruptions of 
1* 



10 

designing men, is our chief source of danger. From 
enemies without we have nothing to fear. There is no 
single nation, nor any alliance of nations, powerful enough 
to overthrow the liberties of this country, so be we are 
united and true to our trusts. If undertaken by well- 
concerted measures, the execution would be defeated by 
the refusal of the people to fight against a nation main- 
taining rights which are dear to every man, in every 
realm. Kings can not move their subjects to risk their 
lives in an unnatural contention for the destruction of hu- 
man freedom. They acknowledge the human brotherhood, 
and will not willingly fight against their own interests and 
convictions. 

Our only danger is in the infection of false and per- 
nicious principles, the virus which has destroyed all re- 
publics. I care less about coast defences and steam bat- 
teries than I do about common schools, and a pure morality 
enforced upon the rising generation, by correct instructions 
in the theory and practice of a truly Democratic Eepublic ; 
and by the examples of those called to administer the 
eovernment in accordance with them. It is much easier 
to resist a foreign foe than to cure an internal corruption ; 
to overpower an invading army than to baflOie the secret 
intrigues of corrupt and ambitious men. 

The history of all attempts to establish and maintain 
personal liberty and the sovereignty of the people, and 
the methods by which tyranny at last has triumphed, 
should forewarn us of our dangers, and keep us on our 
guard. The Grecian republics reveled in luxury, boasted 
of their wealth, and power, and patriotism, and courage ; 
and quarreled with each other while the conquering prince 
of Macedon was marching on their borders. The thun- 
dering eloquence of Demosthenes poured out in strains of 
vehement satire, and burning appeals to their honor and 
their shame, to their homes and their lives, could not drive 
them from the base intoxication into which their pros- 
perity had plunged them. The fall of Oiynthus finally 



11 

alarmed thein, and, like a drunkard half awake, all began 
to fear and tremble for their safety. But then, says one, 
" Every place is surrounded by spies and enemies, and 
how may it be possible to guard against the universal ve- 
nality ? How shall we defend ourselves against a prince 
who has often said, and who has proved his words by facts, 
that there are no walls which a beast of burden laden with 
gold will not easily make his way over*? Other nations 
have applauded the thundering decrees which we have 
enacted against those who have betrayed Olynthus." The 
conquerors also upbraided the principal persons concerned 
in the guilt, and called them traitors to their country — 
thus claiming to be the true friends and defenders of the 
people, while trampling their liberties under their feet ! 
When one complained to Philip of the behavior of his 
soldiers, he sarcastically replied, " The Macedonian soldiers 
are very rude and unpolished ; they will call a spade a 
spade." Too late, the whole country was united ; all dis- 
sensions were, for the moment, in appearance, forgotten, 
and vigorous measures taken to resist the invading tyrant. 
It was too vastly^ increased in numbers, wealth, and all the 
means of greatness, the nations, a small fraction of whom 
defeated the trained hosts of Xerxes at Marathon, Salamis, 
and Platea, could not now, in all their force, successfully 
cope with the small army of the semi-barbarians of the 
North, What vast and well-trained armies could not do, 
corruption, long prosperity, pride and luxury had easily 
accomplished. The whole land fell an easy prey to the 
heroic invader, who built his rough throne on the polished 
ruins of the Republics, Thousands of the noisiest patriots 
bowed obsequiously before the majesty of the Conquerer, 
and Greece was despoiled of her liberty and her glory. 

The same story may be told of Syracuse, of Rome, 
and of all Italian and European Republics, save one. 
Shall it ever be told of America ^ It is for this and fu- 
ture generations to say. 

The single Republic of Switzerland, hung about the crags 



12 

of her everlasting mountains, has endured five centuries, 
and defied the more powerful nations which surround her. 
Need I tell you why ? She has no large cities ; no vast, 
corrupting commerce ; no immense wealth ; no easy luxu- 
ries. The people toil for a subsistence from her cold and 
broken soil, and turn her rapid streams upon the wheels 
of a few small factories. She has no mighty, soulless 
corporations to monopolize her industry; no shining 
honors and jingling salaries to tempt her politicians to in- 
trigues and party pretentions. She has no single patri- 
archal institution to which all legislation must bend ; no 
vast, unsettled territory whose virgin soil may be pollu- 
ted with the sweat, and blood, and lechery of unrequited 
toil. No ! her people are all free, in pretense and in fact ; 
and labor, and industry, and frugality are honorable among 
them. Here is the secret of her permanence and pros- 
perity. No neighboring nation has dared to touch them. 
Austria and Prussia threatened it, but both retreated from 
their claim. The French lion once disgraced himself by 
a ferocious assault to gratify his pride. The great Danish 
artist has forcibly delineated the cowardly attack and deep 
disgrace, by his famous Lion of Luzerne. The once noble 
animal lies crouched upon his shield, with the fleur de lis 
crushed under one paw, while a shaft is rankling in his 
side, producing the deepest agony, depicted on the wrinkled 
flice of the dying brute. 

The Switzer loves his country and her institutions. 
His home among the mountains is for him the dearest 
spot on earth. The chalet of his father he would not sell 
nor alter. " Fireside" and " hearth-stone," have for him 
a deep and holy meaning — alas ! for us no longer. The 
costume of his Canton is worn from generation to genera- 
tion, without the slightest change by man or woman. 
With equal reverence, they cherish the institutions of free- 
dom. They respect themselves, and are respected by 
others. They repel the encroachments of foreign fashion- 
able luxuries and vice. They are impervious to outside 



13 

corruptions and intrigues. They form no alliances, and 
seek no increase of their domains. By their integrity 
and industry they live and prosper in freedom and power, 
in the face of ambitious monarchs who tremble for the 
safety of their thrones. Like the eagle whose eyrie is 
perched upon their highest crags, with si^ht as clear, they 
look down from their homes of frugality, simplicity, and 
contentment, and feel no envy rankling in their souls as 
they see the gaudy luxuries, and hear the proud boasting 
of their haughty neighbors. True to their religious con- 
victions, pure in themselves, and generous towards all, 
their institutions are as firm as the foundations of their 
snow-clad mountains, and as such the study wonder, and 
admiration of the observing in all nations. 

The fall of Greek and Roman Republics should be our 
admonition, while Switzerland has set for us an example 
w^e do well to study. 

No nation ever rose so rapidly to the pinnacle of defiant 
greatness as our own ; and none ever rushed by more di- 
rect and heedless strides along the brink of inevitable 
destruction. I speak not now, in political parlance, of 
imbroglios with foreign powers, pro-slavery aggressions, 
abolition excitements, or the recklessness of fillibustering 
heroes. I care little for any of these agitations, politically, 
I regard them only on their own account, willing that each 
should stand upon its own merits, and be known by its 
fruits. If of man, they will come to naught ; if of 
God, we can not overthrow them. That occasional mis- 
understandings should arise between nations whose inter- 
ests clash, must be expected ; that a people indolent, and 
yet ambitious, and not overstocked with broad, religious 
principles, should desire Slaves to do their work and wait- 
ing, is not to be wondered at ; that Christians who have 
learned and believe the Declaration, should desire to see 
its truths made practical, and speak and labor for it, is no 
matter of astonishment ; and that reckless politicians, de- 
spised at home, and famishing for lack of bread, should 



14 

turn desperadoes, and become wild and wicked adven- 
turers in weak and unprotected countries, is nothing new 
under the sun. 

Our real danger does not lie in that direction ; it is 
nearer home ; it is in the corrupting desire of temporal 
gain, with which to excel in the blandishments of life ; it 
is in the haughty spirit of ambition for place, and parade, 
and preferment, creating rivalries among veriest friends, 
producing a daring spirit of speculation to obtain wealth 
without industry, honor without honesty, fame without 
merit, salvation without the trouble of repentance ; it is 
in the blind adhesion to party names, and dictation to the 
utter disregard of the principles of natural right, equal 
justice, the convictions of conscience, and the true inter- 
ests and honor of mankind ; it is in the wills and willing 
departure from the great truths asserted in the Declara- 
tion of American Independence, upon which our fore- 
fathers planted the standard of liberty, and sought to 
achieve the greatest good for their country and the world ; 
it is in the careless inattention to the instructions and ad- 
monitions of those great and good men who sought to 
establish a government which should combine Christian 
principles and political powder for the security of " life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" to all men ; it is 
in the neglect to carry out and make predominant what 
they so well began, and so nobly defended ; it is in the 
rapid degeneracy too often consequent upon great w^ealth 
easily obtained, and the foolish desire to vie with the 
splendors and luxuries of older and corrupt nations ; it is 
in the substitution of a pretended for a real love and ad- 
miration for the institutions of liberty and right,, on the 
part of gambling politicians, by which the unsuspicious 
are deceived, and beti'ayed into the support of measures 
they neither. understand nor approve; it is in the rapid 
and constant tendency to centralization, by the increase of 
political dishonesty and chicanery by which office-seekers 
and their helpers appeal to the lowest and basest passions 



15 

to promote their selfish ends; it is in the low state of 
political sentiment among the people generally, or a habit 
of carelessness in reference to the great questions which 
concern the stability and development of our Democratic 
form of government. The political can never be raised 
above the moral standard of a people. When therefore, 
the appeal is made to the final tribmial, in order to a just 
and righteous decision, the people must be well informed, 
uncorrupt, and incorruptible, or a true and safe verdict 
will not be rendered. 

If the body is sound, the constitution good, it will 
slough off the obnoxious falsities before alleged. But if 
itself becomes diseased, overworked, and corrupt, these 
invaders will be invited in to feed upon the life that 
remains. It always has been so ; and we are not excep- 
tions. It is the miserable considerations of place, and 
power, and pence, that keeps up these agitations and divi- 
sions ; that gives to slavery all its strength, and to fili- 
busters their only countenance. No man defends slavery 
or excuses it on its own merits, for it has none. It is a 
wrong, a great wrong; a sin against God and humanity ; 
a foul blot, a damning disgrace upon our nation. And 
every body knows it, and confesses it when they stop and 
reflect upon the real thing. Take away the profit, and it 
will find no apologist, 

•' None so mean as do it reverence." 

But SO long as a two-years old child will sell for two 
hundred and fifty dollars ; a boy of ten for one thousand 
dollars; and a girl of fifteen, so be she is sleek and hand- 
some, for fifteen hundred dollars, do you wonder that 
Southern men, Whigs and Democrats, Christians and infi- 
dels, turn their attention to raising negroes instead of 
hogs and horses, which yield not a tithe of the profit 1 
Would not some Northern men, even abolitionists, do the 
same ? The worst masters, and stoutest sticklers for the 
continuance and spread of the evil, have gone from the 
North ; and its strong supporters are here, as well as there. 



J 

16 /' 

The South knows the weak spot, and plies the chief argu- 
ment ; aims the poisoned shaft directly at it. They 
threaten to molest the course of trade, destroy our pros- 
perous commerce, and leave us to starve, if we will not 
fall down and reverence their peculiar institution ; nay, 
they will dissolve the Union, destroy the government, and 
let the nation go to destruction, before they will abate one 
jot their right to hold in bondage and in ignorance three 
millions of human beings ; to buy and sell and make gain 
out of their bodies, souls, and unpaid toil, and carry them 
in chains into any part of our public domain. And there 
are found wise men who believe them, and for the hope 
of gain — the mess of pottage — are ready to sacrifice prin- 
ciples — what they have — to party preferment, to prostrate 
themselves before this huge Juggernaut which, in the end, 
is sure to crush all its devotees, as it has ever done. 

Now, a good, moderate, honest policy I admire. It is 
safe and commendable. But when the blood of principle, 
the life of all true prosperity, is demanded, it is time to 
stop and consider. The aggressions of slave power 
making treaties but to break them, and promises but to 
repudiate them, have aroused, at last, an element in 
human nature which will come dov/n with telling force 
upon the wide departures from the primary truths upon 
which our government is founded. Cotton bales, and 
political intrigues, can not save their pride and arrogance 
fi'om the scorn and indignation of the civilization of this 
nineteenth century, nor from the disgrace of those crimes 
which cry to heaven for judgment. 

Do not misapprehend me. I would not disturb the 
harmony of our happy Union. But I would defend the 
right, and plead the cause of the oppressed and needy. I 
would let the voice of God and humanity be heard in a 
free and fair discussion of all questions which concern the 
honor of one, and the good of the other. The most dan- 
gerous feature in all this matter is the dogged exclusive- 
ness of some, or stolid indifference of others, where eternal 



17 

and self-evident truths are at stake. A man may not 
write, print, speak, think, or act differently on this single 
question from the arrogant censors of public opinion, on 
pain of ostracism. No man or woman may teach a boy 
or girl to read God's holy word, under the penalty of fine 
and imprisonment, if the mother's skin be a shade too 
dark, though, perchance, the hair is straight, the cheeks as 
red, the eyes as blue as the master's who demands the 
punishment. Presidents and Professors of Colleges are 
dismissed and banished, like every other who dares to 
have an opinion or a preference different from the traffickers 
in blood, and so of every bookseller who keeps a pamphlet 
distasteful to their chivalry. Such is freedom, and such the 
example of the boasted chivalry of the model Republic ! 

And there are, I fear, too many among the freemen of 
the North who justify such abominations, and in their souls 
no doubt regret that slavery was ever abolished in any 
State, that they are not now permitted to trade in human 
beings as goods and chattels everywhere. Such think 
Franklin was a fool, instead of a philosopher ; and the 
great men of the last century needless agitators, because 
they entered their protest against this inhuman traffic, and 
sought its peaceable removal. Alas ! for their memories, 
and the honor of our nation ! How soon are we departed 
from the simple maxims and sublime principles they 
announced ! How soon have we forgotten the lessons 
taught, and the examples set us by our patriot sires. 

Wake, wake, ye slumbering heroes of the past, and let 
your ghostly reproaches fall upon your degenerate sons ! 
Make pass before us the microcosm of your noble deeds, 
your bitter sufferings, your patient endurance, your glori- 
ous triumph ! Tell us what liberty cost, that we may 
know how to prize it ; what it is, that we may know how 
to defend it ! 

Some people dread the immense influx of foreign popu- 
lations. So do I, except on one condition, that they 
leave their national prejudices and clannish dispositions 



18 

behind them, and all that appertains to the nations they 
have voluntarily forsaken, and become, at once and alto- 
^ gether, affiliated to the institutions of the land of their 
adoption. Let them eschew their royalty, their ignor- 
ance, and their lawlessness ; let them strip oif their 
corduroys and blouses, forsake their lager-beer and their 
papacy, and learn to think, speak, and feel in the plain 
American dialect of liberty and law, and live in all good 
faith with the people among whom they have come ; and 
they shall find an honest welcome, and a happy home. 

Let me speak a moment upon our dangers in another 
aspect. The careful observer can not fail to notice an 
important fact in relation to the populations of cities and 
large towns, when compared with rural districts. The 
traveler and the statistician alike perceive the striking 
change in the comparison. I notice here and there a 
vacant farm, houses shut up, removed, torn down, or 
turned into a shed or sheep barn. The place, it may be 
where we were born, is among them. The fate of Homer 
may yet be ours. If forty places do not care to claim us, 
not one may know, not our own children, where we were 
born. 

The country towns of your State, of New-England, the 
Middle and Southern States, are actually diminishing in 
population. " Going West" may account for this fact in 
part, but not altogether. Our cities, manufacturing vil- 
lages, and commercial centres, have increased and are 
still increasing, many of them with unparalleled rapidity. 
Our young men and women, and some old ones, have be- 
come discontented and quit their homes, to do better ; 
infatuated with a desire to get rich faster and easier; 
to live more splendidly, and yet more lazily. They 
learn to despise home, its simple manners, sincere affec- 
tion, honest toil, and frugal living, and desire the blandish- 
ments, indolence, excitement and extravagance so common 
in cities and large towns. They are like the beautiful 



19 

young women of Georgia and Circassia who, from their 
childhood, dream of the splendors and luxuries of Istam- 
boul, and longing to be sold from their mothers' arms and 
fathers' care, that they may be bought in the Aurut Bazaar, 
perchance by the Kisler Aga, to become the beautiful and 
envied Odaliques in the harem of the Sultan. 

Here is a great and crying danger — a gross offence against 
the memories of our forefathers. We have not heeded 
their wise precepts, nor followed their good examples. 
We have departed from their simple, honest, earnest mode 
of life, and preferred the vanities and follies of a growing 
profligacy. Foreign fashions and flummeries have been 
imported, and exotic customs, and almost every species of 
extravagance have made a rapid growth in our exuberant 
love of imitation. We have forgotten the distinction 
between man and monkey, and puzzled naturalists 
with doubtful disquisitions by our apishness. There is 
no nation on earth so much given to fashion, and not a 
street where may be seen so much foolish, foppish extrava- 
gance, such proud and costly bearing, as in Broadway. 
Multitudes of our men grown suddenly rich, visit Europe, 
and admire aristocracy robed in authority. They visit 
many cities, but make their longest stay at Rome or Paris, 
the two corruptest cities in the world. They find their 
standard there, and model after it. On their return they 
set up their carriages, sew shiny buttons on the coats and 
fasten gilt bands round the hats of hireling Englishmen, 
and then go down to their shops, and leave their wives 
and children to take an airing in livery. 

Young men and women from the country, honest, ambi- 
tious, and unsophisticated, visit their city cousins. Their 
eyes are dazzled with the displays of wealth and luxury 
and apparent ease and contentment seen in the fashionable 
streets, and " private princely palaces." They think all is 
gold that glitters, and long to leave their mountain homes 
and become denizens of a crowded city. They do not see 
the crime, and shame, and misery which lurks under fair 



20 

externals, from the smooth-faced hypocrisy laced into the 
latest style and widest proportions, yawning on plush 
cushions in the grandest churches, to the lame duck who 
shins it through every broker's office just before three 
o'clock, all the way down through dishonest trade, gambling 
houses, billiard-saloons, grog shops and brothels, which 
drum for customers, to the lowest pits of vice, poverty, 
and degradation which fester in the damp cellars, dark 
lanes, rear buildings, and horrid purlieus of all large cities* 
The whole manner of city life is becoming little else than 
a system of false pretences, from highest to lowest. Most 
of life's enjoyments are sought in artificial excitements. 
Nature's simple laws are strangely outraged, and the best 
of heaven's blessings are perverted and changed into 
curses, as of old. Where are the decencies and proprie- 
ties of life so outraged as in our cities and large towns 1 
Where are mobs, murders, riots, thefts, drunkenness, har- 
lotry, and lawless living most common? Where are 
reforms most difficult, crimes most successful, vice most 
unblushing, and virtue least courted ? And yet young 
people despise the rustic simplicity of their quiet and 
happy homes, and rush into the city. Alas, how few 
return as good as they went ! 

From the city and large towns there sets back upon the 
country a full tide of bad influences, which helps to de- 
ceive and corrupt our young men and maidens. To the 
merchant, mechanic, professional man, and laborer, money 
seems to come easily, and in abundance. Immense for- 
tunes have been made in a brief period. Young men from 
the country have risen to wealth and distinction with 
astonishing celerity ; therefore all others may. No heed 
is given to the nine out of ten who utterly fail, and sink 
into ruin and disgrace. Wealth flows into large places 
to find a higher and safer usury ; talent for a better oppor- 
tunity for distinction. Agriculture and productive toil 
are neglected, while the rage of speculation prevails. 
Lands, houses, rents, provisions, everything goes up ; and 



21 

honesty goes down. Banks, insurance companies, rail- 
ways, coal mines, gold diggins. Western cities, patent 
rights, all sorts of facts and fancies in the earth and in the 
moon, are hatched and divided into stocks to be traf- 
ficed in. The immense inflation of the currency by sub- 
stituting pictured paper, issued on credit, lends a power 
and temporary success to all unnatural schemes of specula- 
tion, and cheats honest toil of half its recompense. 
Every upstart who has a father or old uncle to back him, 
longs to get behind a counter and measure tape, sell pea- 
nuts, tinker in stocks, or count and record money not his 
own ; or to turn peddler and speculator, and ransack every 
nook and corner of the land to find something to trade in. 
They come up here from the cities, and go to every house 
and hamlet to buy all marketable produce before it is 
produced — your eggs before they are laid, your corn be- 
fore it is planted, your butter before the cows are milked, 
your lambs before they are born. They off*er you a price, 
and combine with their fellows to keep prices low here 
and high there, and succeed so long as banks will renew 
their discounts. Thus these interlopers come between 
the producer and the consumer, and like hungry leeches 
suck all the profit from both. They look two ways for 
Sunday. They are the lice and frogs of Egypt — the 
locusts of the land. If they prosper, honesty suffers ; if 
they fail, it is all the same. And so all the way along in 
the modern method of doing business. The old-fashioned 
days of checked aprons, patient industry, cheerful frugality, 
practical honesty, and Christian meekness seem to have 
departed ; I sometimes fear, never to return. We see no 
more barefoot humility and ox-sled piety going to church 
summer or winter, as when we were children together. 

The evil has infected the whole community. The poi- 
son is in all of us. We may as well confess it. But all 
are not past recovery. Some there are, in city and coun- 
try, who deplore these things in solemn earnestness, and 
are ready to join hands and seek a remedy before it is too 



22 

late. When really set about it, one will be easily found. 
It is simply to return to the practice of all that was good and 
just in the days when simple, earnest, and true men " knew 
their rights, and knowing, dared defend them ;" when hu- 
mility went before pride ; true patriotism lived in men's 
hearts ; when our country had statesmen instead of poli- 
ticians, and honest men were preferred before party success. 

Politicians are deeply implicated in the corruptions 
which seem to be rife in almost every department of our 
Municipal, State, and General governments. So all-perva- 
ding has the evil become, that professional politicians are 
looked upon with utmost suspicion, as selfish and dishonest 
men. And there is reason for it. A " Corruption Com- 
mittee " in Congress detected much malfeasance with 
little trouble, but soon found they had struck a vein they 
must not follow, and even refused to the implicated an 
explanation for fear of more exposures than they could 
manage. And, after all, what is the substance of a large 
portion of our legislation, State and National 1 Is it not 
for mere mercenary objects, corporations, land monopo- 
lies, over-worked commerce, and special partisan pur- 
poses 1 What a small portion is given directly or inci- 
dentally to the great mass of the people — to farmers, 
mechanics, and laborers, for the general good ! A few 
Reports from the Patent Office, v/ith a few papers of seeds 
sent to families, is about all the farmer gets. 

Glance back to the Revolution. Study the character 
of the people and the legislation of those dayfe. You will 
find them the golden days of political honesty, when 
reigned the love of universal liberty. How strangely do 
they contrast with our time ! How vast the change, and 
yet what means for good ! What success, and yet what 
sad degeneracy ! How has prosperity increased our lux- 
ury, pride, extravagance, hypocrisy — the bane of all re- 
publics ! 

The culmination may be reached, the crisis may be 
passed, and destruction be escaped or delayed. I some- 



23 

times fear and tremble when I contemplate our future in 
the light of the present. If the past is to be the prelude, 
there can be but one conclusion. But if truth is eternal 
and destined to prevail, then there is reason for hope. If 
there is no recuperative power in the construction, the 
foundations remain sure ; and, when every relic is swept 
away, there will arise a structure more solid and beauti- 
ful, whose glory shall fill the whole earth. Great things 
may of right be expected of a land like ours. The name 
of Washington is in every language the synonyme of lib- 
erty and greatness, and our Republic is every wheresup- 
posed to be the home of equal justice, eternal right, 
and perfect prosperity. The founders of all nations are 
heroes, and when they sink into corruption and degrada- 
tion, they rise to be gods, and are worshipped though not 
obeyed. If those entrusted with privilege prove faithless, 
another and holier generation will the Lord raise up to 
take their places. 

One State, I am glad to know, has maintained its in- 
tegrity fully equal to any other, and excelled in its 
adhesion to the plain and simple manners and customs 
of its youthful days. Why ? It has no large cities, no 
seaports steaming with sin and shame, no large proportion 
of dependent and idle people to hatch mischief, no con- 
centrated powder, no overw^eening aristocracy. Railways 
intersect your valleys, and iron bands are fastened over 
your mountains. They were mostly built with capital 
from profits on the productions of your labor, returned 
from cities where accumulated. They bring you news 
and fashions, and increase the value of your farms. Much 
of your rural simplicity remains, improved, perchance, by 
the easy intercourse and interchange of commodities with 
all ports of the country. But your sons are grown dis- 
contented, and a grand exodus is going forward in pursuit 
of easier fortunes, which must seriously threaten your 
prosperity. Make your homes pleasant and attractive, 
with every facility for genuine refinement in the resources 



24 

and comforts of a high moral and rational existence, and 
you will attach them by a bond they will be loth to sever. 

One thing delights me when I think that this is my 
native State ; and in that I glory. Amid all changes, 
under all administrations. Federalist, Republican, De- 
mocratic, Anti-Masonic, Whig, or Black Eepublican — 
forgive the expletive — Vermont has always been true to 
the great principles of civil and religious liberty, and firm 
in her attachments to the Union and human rights as the 
foundations of her everlasting mountains. It rejoices my 
heart to learn that my native town voted, without one 
dissent, for constitutional liberty and the limit of wrong. 

Pirst-born child of a happy Union ; begotten in the 
fervor of a pure and perfect love ! Like the fame of thy 
earliest heroes, who said to rival States on either side, 
while yet in embryo, " Hands off," but who, by their 
heroism, at Crown Point, Ticonderoga, Bennington, and 
Saratoga, rendered the name of Green Mountain Boy 
immortal on the pages of history ; so may thy sons ever 
be found faithful to thy first love, and jealous of thy 
rights ! From the summits of thy lofty mountains may 
the watch-fires of freedom, purity, intelligence, and pa- 
riotism blaze out with brighter lustre than ever shone 
from Paynim altar, or Monarch's throne ; and from thy 
rugged cliffs and beautiful valleys may there ring out 
through all the land, and to the latest generations, one 
united voice for liberty, humanity, and God — till from the 
commercial cities of the East there shall be echoed a res- 
ponse which shall roll over the broad prairies of the West, 
overleap the Rocky barrier, and sound down into the naines 
of California. Nay, more, may the light of thy example 
cease not to circulate, till from no spot of our fair land 
shall there be found one dark spot from whence shall be 
heard a wail of wo, or a cry of oppression, but with the 
whole humanity join in the grand and grateful anthem in 
honor of truth, right, liberty, love, and universal peace. 



